jacob’s Reviews > Persuasion > Status Update
jacob
is on page 274 of 336
"In this work . . . Austen's position [is] essentially liberal & acutely prescient by showing the enormous burden that the modern Western world places on individual moral choice . . . Courtship becomes the arena in which choices may not be obviously right or wrong, good or bad, until proved out consequentially . . . Each individual cannot fall back on an external checklist or on an authoritarian moral advisor . . ."
— Sep 15, 2026 05:37PM
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jacob’s Previous Updates
jacob
is on page 269 of 336
"'Perhaps, Anne rationalizes . . . 'this was one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.'
This is an extraordinary statement! How can a subsequent event be the determinant of whether a moral decision is right or wrong? . . . Is Anne Elliot merely assuming a providential universe in which whatever happens is right? . . ."
— Sep 14, 2026 05:30PM
This is an extraordinary statement! How can a subsequent event be the determinant of whether a moral decision is right or wrong? . . . Is Anne Elliot merely assuming a providential universe in which whatever happens is right? . . ."
jacob
is on page 265 of 336
"Was Anne right to give in to the 'persuasion' of Lady Russell? There is rich ambiguity or hesitation here, & phrases such as 'the fair interference of friendship' in their poised ambivalence indicate that Jane Austen knew all about the multiple motivations which are at work in the impulse to exert some apparently beneficent control over a person in a weaker position."
—extract from "Jane Austen," Tony Tanner (1986)
— Sep 04, 2026 07:04PM
—extract from "Jane Austen," Tony Tanner (1986)
jacob
is on page 211 of 336
4/4: ". . . To hope to make so much out of so little showed no common confidence in her own powers, and more than common daring. Of the thousands who take up a pen to write a story meant to amuse, how many are there who can, or who dare, be true, like Jane Austen?"
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
— Jul 18, 2026 07:11PM
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
jacob
is on page 211 of 336
". . . To hope to make so much out of so little showed no common confidence in her own powers, and more than common daring. Of the thousands who take up a pen to write a story meant to amuse, how many are there who can, or who dare, be true, like Jane Austen?"
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
— Jul 18, 2026 07:10PM
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
jacob
is on page 211 of 336
3/4: ". . . In her own range, and admitting her cold views of life to be true, she is faultless, or almost faultless . . . The value of light and shade, as a means of success, she discarded. Strong contrasts, bold flights, she shunned. To be true, to show life in its everyday aspect, was her ambition . . ."
— Jul 18, 2026 07:09PM
jacob
is on page 211 of 336
2/4: ". . . [T]his want of certain important faculties . . . causes the only defect, of Miss Austin's works: that everything is told in the same tone. An elopement, a death, seduction, are related as placidly as a dinner or ball . . . As she is, however, we must take her, and what her extraordinary powers wanted in extent, they made up in depth . . ."
— Jul 18, 2026 07:09PM
jacob
is on page 211 of 336
1/4: "But it was natural that powers so great should fail somewhere . . . [T]he delicate mind that could evolve, so shrewdly, foolishness from its deepest recesses, was powerless when strong feelings had to be summoned. They heard her, but they did not obey the call . . ."
— Jul 18, 2026 07:08PM
jacob
is on page 209 of 336
2/2: ". . . It seems so natural . . . so easy, that we are apt to forget the performance in the sense of its reality. The literary taste of the majority is always tinged with coarseness; it loves exaggeration, & slights the modesty of truth."
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
— Jul 18, 2026 06:29PM
—appendix extract from Julia Kavanagh, "The Language of Feeling," from "English Women of Letters" (1862)
jacob
is on page 209 of 336
1/2: "Wonderful, indeed, is the power that out of materials so slender, out of characters so imperfectly marked, could fashion a story. This is her great, her prevailing merit, & yet it cannot be denied, it is one that injures her with many readers . . ."
— Jul 18, 2026 06:29PM
. . . Is it possible that while writing Persuasion, her health already deteriorating . . . Jane Austen is reconsidering her earlier plot resolutions and projecting a deep sense of anxiety about a universe governed providentially (what ought to be) versus a universe governed by moral luck (what is)? Such a very human anxiety throws more of an existential choice back onto the individual. Like it or not, Jane Austen's men and women—especially women—must make moral judgments on their own and be prepared—as Anne Elliott is admirably willing to do even when she is wrong the first time—to live with the consequences of those judgments. Above all, not to judge, or to let others judge for you, is to fail in the conduct of life."
—appendix, extract from Robert Hopkins, "Moral Luck and Judgment in Jane Austen's Persuasion," (1987)